


they have stolen the heart from inside you (but this does not define you)

by spacexkitten



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/F, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, The Winter Soldier AU, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 12:28:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16408511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacexkitten/pseuds/spacexkitten
Summary: She takes a moment to catch her breath, then a frown hardens her features, as her voice comes out soft and weak. “Ava?”“What in hell is an ava?”





	they have stolen the heart from inside you (but this does not define you)

**Author's Note:**

> title from moana's iconic "know who you are", chapter titles from gaga's "perfect illusion".  
> any grammatical errors, inaccuracies, and weird word combinations are mine.  
> i hope you like it!

Blood trickles down the blonde target’s nose and she wipes it with the back of her hand. The Winter Soldier points her gun down at her, an eager finger on the trigger, but an explosion behind her catches her attention.

The Soldier turns to see a bald man clad in leather, the barrel of his weird-looking gun aimed at her; her metal arm clangs against it as she tries to knock the weapon off his hand, and they both grunt.

The Soldier puts her own gun in her thigh holster and moves to kick the man, but she sees the butt of the gun coming toward her. She instinctively makes to duck, but it hits her on the face and she loses her balance. Her vision is blurry, and she quickly becomes aware that her goggles are trashed; a growl grows in her throat at the realization, and she takes them off and tosses them to the ground.

She looks up, and the bald idiot is back, the barrel of his gun pointed at her once again. Metal fingers wrap around it and squeeze; she uses it to help herself up and she can feel parts of it crush under her fingertips.

The man grunts.

The next time he pulls the trigger the gun makes a weird sound, and he turns to the side to assess the damage.

When he turns to her, the lines on his forehead have deepened. “My gun,” he husks, unimpressed. “You broke my gun.”

“Wait ‘til I break your bones,” she says coolly and blows a strand of hair away from her face. She grabs him by the lapel of his jacket and pushes him against the side of a car.

Metal fingers curl into a fist, but she doesn’t punch him; she can feel something cold cutting through her left shoulder blade and she lets a growl through gritted teeth.

Her right hand reaches behind her, and fingers slip through the spot where her suit’s been rent and feel the wound.

She looks over her shoulder and sees the blonde target, her eyes fierce and angry. "Won't miss the next time," she says and stumbles as she tries to get up.

The Soldier thrusts the man against the side of the car one last time and lets him fall to the ground; she’ll deal with him later.

The blonde target reaches behind her back and produces a pair of batons. She twirls them in the air, and the Soldier accepts the challenge with a nod; she reaches for an extendable baton from her belt and snaps it to its full length.

Suited bodies dance around on the bridge, batons clanging, as they both try to disarm the other.

The Winter Soldier’s chest rises and falls with fury, seeing that the target can match every single one of her moves; she then hits and kicks more furiously, when she clutches one of the target’s batons and tosses it to the ground.

Its twin baton also falls to the ground moments later when the blonde target falls face-up on the hard ground, the Soldier looming over her fatigued body. The Soldier lunges down, snakes her palm around her neck and lifts her up, so that the target's feet are no longer on the ground.

The small blonde reaches up, her fingers scrabbling at the Soldier's eyes, and the Soldier throws the blonde as far away as she can. She lands next to her batons and she picks one of them up before she gets to her feet.

The Soldier grabs a knife from her belt and thrusts it at her, but the target easily avoids it; the blonde manages to get a hold of her metal wrist; she finds an opening in the metal limb and slides the end her baton there, pressing until an awful growl of pain escapes the Soldier.

The target removes the baton and shifts her body behind her before her fingers are in the Soldier's face. 

Before she can react, the Soldier is on the ground, and she can feel a prickle on the left side of her face, probably caused from the impact. She sits up and realizes that her mask is no longer on her face; she can feel the afternoon breeze patting her face, stray strands of hair brushing against her cheeks.

The impact must have knocked it off her face.

She stands up but doesn't turn to the target immediately. She brings two fingers to touch the wound on the side of her head. Two fingertips slide down hot skin, and she doesn’t have to see the warm liquid on her fingers to know she’s bleeding; she clenches her jaw.

She looks at her over her shoulder. When their eyes lock, she sees the fierceness in the target's eyes melt away, her mouth opening slightly. The Soldier wonders if the target might collapse to the ground.

The target takes a moment to catch her breath, then a frown hardens her features, as her voice comes out soft and weak. “Ava?”

The Soldier turns to her, processes the target's reaction, that word she's just said, but comes to the conclusion that she's no idea what she's referring to.

“What in hell is an ava?” she asks coldly and takes a step toward the target. A voice in the back of her mind is telling her to reach for the gun in her thigh holster; she doesn't.

She remains staring into the pair of blue eyes, warm and soft as they've turned; she gets a— _feeling_ , like she's seen this warmth before, in some completely different situation.

She closes her eyes and exhales deeply, trying to focus on her mission.

The target takes a hesitant step toward her and she lets the knives in her hands fall to the ground; she slowly raises her hands, and the Winter Soldier frowns, wondering what her plan is.

The crease between her brows deepens and, when she speaks again, the blonde's voice breaks, “Ava, it's me.”

She feels the blonde's eyes on her, flickering here and there, examining. The Soldier takes it that the other woman's expecting something of her, a reply of sorts, but she has no idea what she's talking about; she only assumes that all this must be some kind of trap, despite the earnestness in the blonde's voice. The Winter Soldier's metal arm automatically goes to the gun on her hip and she raises it to fire.

She aims at her, but somebody is shooting—fire?—at her.

She turns to see the bald man is back and shooting fire all around her.

A flamethrower, then.

“Time to go, boss,” he grunts, and helps the blonde target up. 

Above them, a strange-looking spacecraft appears, its cargo door open.

The blonde turns to look at the Winter Soldier one last time before she and the man rush through the cargo door and into the spacecraft.

* * *

The blonde target's voice echoes in her mind as her eyes remain fixed on the black granite floor. A mechanic is working on her metal arm, and she can faintly hear him addressing her, asking something, but she's too distracted to listen.

She looks up at him when she becomes aware that he has paused his work to get her attention, “—you don’t feel... anything?”

She doesn't flinch. She knows she's expected to feel stinging pain; she indeed did, at first. Back when her handler began sending her on assignments, pain was not a stranger to her; she would pant and fall and bleed. And any damage to the metal arm would come at a cost that reminded her to be more careful the next time. Now, she's so used to simple repair procedures that all she feels is a mere pinch; she can feel it right this instant, that pinch, as the mechanic silently continues his work.

That damned machine in the far corner of the room, however, would be—no, it still is sometimes—the source of a most terrible kind of pain. She can't remember what it does; she's only familiar with the procedure and the things it makes her feel. Helplessness. Gutting pain. Failure.

She hasn't sat in it lately, though; her skills have improved so much over the years that her handler is hardly displeased with her work. She's his most prized asset, his biggest shot at greatness, or so he keeps telling her.

The left side of her face, or at least the part that scratched against the hard ground when she'd been spun over and landed onto the road, feels numb when she shallows. She brings her thumb to feel the skin there. As if on autopilot, her mind replays the moment. The Soldier falling face-first, her mask getting knocked off, the blonde target's confusing expression when she'd seen her without the mask.

How fury had drained out of a pair of blue eyes when they'd gotten a chance at taking a better look at her. The Soldier's gaze falters; there was something familiar about that pair of eyes, the blonde soldier; like they've met before, like they knew each other.

When had she encountered the woman before?

She feels her face sour as she tries to pull up anything about her and comes up with nothing.

Was she a past target of hers? Had she failed at killing her before?

Did they know each other? Was that why she'd talked to her? Was she an ally? A past soldier of her handler's? And that word she'd said—Ava.

Was it a code for something?

A hint?

She doesn't know.

She's sure of one thing: it’s a riddle, and cracking it is a most difficult task; she doesn't realize that the mechanic has, at some point, moved on to stitching her back, or that he's finished his repairs altogether.

She notices how his procedure mask moves as he slowly repeats what she's sure he's been repeating the past minute. “—please be more careful next time,” she finally hears him say.

A metallic clang is heard, and the mechanic is on the floor, panting, the lapels of his white robe twisting in the Soldier's grasp. She looks into his eyes, but terror is all she finds; the mechanic breaks eye contact to stare at something behind the Soldier, and she doesn't have to turn around to know a gun is being pointed at her; she can feel the cold weapon pushing against her bare back. Soon, the mechanic's head softly hits the floor when she abruptly throws her hands up.

Shame strikes her; biting the hand that feeds her doesn't feel right nor does such behavior suit a soldier.

She awkwardly stands up and takes a step backward, her hand finding her shirt; the shirt slides across the skin of her scarred back, and she feels something akin to disgust, but the feeling is pushed away instantaneously.

She comes to plant her feet in her preferred spot in front of the panoramic window, and metal and flesh fingers work together to button the shirt. When their mission is complete, they are knit together behind her back.

Her eyes are trained on the snow-covered mountains standing tall less than a kilometer away; she can feel the same gun that was pointed at her moments ago silently watching her from the other side of the room. Her gaze strays from what it usually examines and is drawn to the unending blue stretching before her. The spotless blue of the sky, both breathtaking and calming at the same time, reminds her of that damned pair of blue eyes.

A word echoes in her head.

Ava.

Her lips move to produce the word.

Ava, she mouths, and the word leaves her lips more naturally this time.

Her lips keep silently forming it until the word produces an odd feeling in her mouth; she never tries it out loud, though. She suspects no one in the room must hear it. A secret she's not quite eager to share until she discovers its power.

Another mechanic brings her some bitter-tasting liquid, and she drinks it hastily in hopes that it'll wash the thoughts away.

It doesn't.

Ava.

And, then, by force of habit, her mouth produces another word: Sharpe.

“Ava Sharpe” has a familiar ring to it. She tries to but can't explain why it does so; her brows are knit together in perplexity. Must be a name; she feels like it's left her lips thousands of times, yet she cannot say so confidently.

The enemy soldier had said it like a name.

A place?

Past assignment that has faded from her memory?

~~_Her_ own name?~~

Her eyes look up at the sky expectantly, as if it might give her an answer.

_Enough._

It's a target's name, she decides, because wondering isn't in her nature; she is only here to complete her assignments. Her handler is the one to ask questions; she simply provides answers, solutions.

Still, something about Ava Sharpe feels homey.

She can feel the answer tingling at the back of her mind, but it feels like she doesn't have access to that part. She clenches her teeth, metallic fingers curl into a fist; ~~not knowing,~~ not being able to remember what it means irritates her more than it should.

Footsteps are heard, and then a familiar male voice, its tone authoritative as ever, “Mission report.”

She doesn't turn to face the man; her eyes flicker from the sun-kissed mountain tops to the blue sky.

Ava Sharpe, she repeats in her head, a mantra whose meaning she cannot quite pinpoint.

A sharp pain in her head, unparallel to anything she encounters out in the field, pierces through her. Her head finds shelter in her hands, as images flash through her mind: her waking up in a lab, her arm gleaming under blinding lights. Then, a feeling: discomfort—and pain—stemming from her left shoulder blade; and piercing cold before falling into some kind of a dreamless stand-by mode.

Strands of blonde hair block her view, and she slowly realizes that she is on the floor, shivering. Around her, suited men, their guns pointed at her. Before she can help herself up, she is being dragged to a chair, a machine she has sat in countless times. In whose arms she's experienced the worst of pains.

“Mission report,” he repeats, this time more sharply. Another jolt of pain runs down her spine. “Now.”

She looks up at her handler. His blue eyes are glimmering with fierceness, but they lack that something she'd found in the eyes of the blonde soldier.

“The woman on the bridge,” she starts coldly, but in her head, she replays the last bit of her interaction with the woman, “who is she?”

“You met her earlier this week on another assignment.”

That doesn't sound right, she thinks, and her gaze slowly falls to the ground. She tries again to remember where exactly she'd met the blonde soldier but comes up with nothing. She feels the urge to bang her forehead with the heel of her hand, to help remember something, anything about her, but sees her handler take a seat right in front of her and catches herself.

“I think I knew her,” she whispers.

“Your work has been a gift to me,” he states, and she frowns, trying to find the connection between her question and his answer. “You shaped the past couple years. And I need you to do it one more time.”

She nods, although she doesn't listen to what he's saying next; a single word is burning in her mind and almost slips through her lips—

“A-va.”

Her handler abruptly stops and leans forward. He probably thinks she didn't catch how his eyes filled with terror for a split second; she did. “What was that?” he asks, mockingly bringing a hand to his ear.

Her unfocused gaze falls to the ring on his fingers, and she mentally compares it to the ones the blonde soldier wore. She turns to look at him and says, “Ava... Sharpe.”

She knows how to read shock when she sees it, has seen it hundreds of times in the eyes of her targets. Never, however, had she seen her handler shocked until now.

 _Intriguing_ ; he knows what the words mean and the power they hold.

“Where did you get that name?”

She's right, then. It’s a name. Evidently, the name of someone he fears; _most intriguing_.

“The blonde on the bridge, she said it.”

His hands find his thighs and he rushes to get up. Nervous, he is nervous. Another first for him.

“Prep her.”

“She's been out of cryo freeze too long,” says a technician shakily, his eyes on her, never on the man. But she's used to seeing the technicians and the mechanics shake in terror in the presence of her handler.

Her handler stops and looks at the technician, his tone mandating. “Then wipe her and start over.”

“Yes, Mr. Darhk, sir,” says the same technician hastily and paces toward her.

The Soldier shallows hard; she's failed her handler and she's quite acquainted with what comes next. Probably been through the procedure a dozen of times.

She opens her mouth expectantly. Hands covered in rubber gloves push her into the chair, and a gumshield is being pushed into her mouth, the rubber leaving an awful taste behind.

Her nostrils flare as the machine's brought to life, buzzing and all; she braces herself for the pain she knows too well is coming. Ava, she repeats in her head. Ava Sharpe, and she tries to bury it in a part of her mind where the machine won't find it; she knows that's impossible.

The straps are too tight around her arms as the helmet locks on to her head.

A growl rumbles in her chest as pain cuts through her, and she bites into the gumshield.

In her mind, she holds onto a single image, that of the blonde on the bridge, as waves of pain threaten to wash it away.

All she can do now is hope the memory survives the storm.

It doesn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi over at [ twitter ](https://twitter.com/spacexxkitten/)! feedback is always appreciated! <3


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